Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) took a victory lap on Friday after President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court.
Bacon, who had proposed legislation to return the tariff power solely to Congress, took to social media to claim vindication. “The Constitution’s checks and balances still work. Article One gives tariff authority to Congress. This was a common-sense and straightforward ruling by the Supreme Court. I feel vindicated as I’ve been saying this for the last 12 months,” Bacon wrote on X, adding:
In the future, Congress should defend its own authorities and not rely on the Supreme Court. Besides the Constitutional concerns I had on the Administration’s broad-based tariffs, I also do not think tariffs are smart economic policy. Broad-based tariffs are bad economics.
Bacon later joined CNN to discuss Trump’s announcement that he would not only keep his tariffs, but raise them globally by 10% using a different statute.
“Any tariff has to be approved by Congress. That is what he wrote, and that’s the majority position. The president today kept quoting the dissenting view, which is not law. Neil Gorsuch’s position is law,” Bacon told CNN’s Brianna Keilar, adding:
And so, bottom line, any tariff that the president wants to do has to go through Congress and be approved. That’s the bottom line from this ruling. And I agree with that. That’s what the founders wanted, and that’s what Republicans should want. We have long held this view. Just because President Trump disagrees shouldn’t change what conservatives believe in.
“And yet very few Republicans have sort of stood up and said that as strongly as you did right there, which I want to revisit in a moment. But first off, as you said, it now requires Congress,” replied Keilar, asking:
Well, the president was asked if he’s going to ask Congress for more tariff authority. He said, “I don’t have to. It’s already been approved.” We should note Section 122, under which he wants to do this 10% global tariff, expires in a hundred and fifty days unless Congress extends it. What do you make of him saying that he doesn’t have to go to Congress because it’s already been approved?
“Well, I did read Neil Gorsuch’s position on this. That was the majority position in the ruling, and that is what is now law, unless it gets changed later down the road. I think if he goes ahead with his 10% global tariff, it will be brought up for a vote in Congress and it will be defeated,” Bacon replied, adding:
It may not have a veto-proof majority, but it will have a majority that will go against that 10% overall tariff. So I think the president is making a mistake here. Again, he’s citing a lot to support this from the dissenting position, but that is not law. And so I think the 10% global tariff also undermines his argument about these tariffs being reciprocal, right?
This is what he was trying to defend the tariffs on, and I think a lot of folks like me never really believed it. I think he’s been a tariff supporter since the 1980s. And I just want to come back and tell my fellow Republicans: we have opposed tariffs since World War II. It’s been the conservative position. The last Republican president to support tariffs was Herbert Hoover, and it exacerbated the Depression — the worst depression that we ever had. So the conservative position here is that tariffs are bad economics, bad politics, and we should defend that. I have not changed.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
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